Introducing BeQuiet's Shadow Rock 3, an air cooler with an emphasis on quiet cooling
- One of the quietest coolers I have ever tested
- Fin structure makes it ideal for fanless builds
BeQuiet is a name well known by cooling enthusiasts, and should need no introduction. Their name tells you what their specialty is : quiet cooling performance. I use BeQuiet's Silent Base 802 computer case for my Intel testing rig, and their Dark Rock Pro 4 Air Cooler is a favorite of many for it's strong cooling performance and low noise levels. With today's review we'll be looking at how BeQuiet's Shadow Rock 3 air cooler, which retails for $50 USD, performs with AMD's Ryzen 7 7700X.
Features of BeQuiet's Shadow Rock 3
- Five Direct Touch Copper Heatpipes
The Shadow Rock 3 includes 5x direct touch copper heatpipes - meaning that the heatpipes are in direct contact with the CPU. This helps improve the ability to transfer heat away from the CPU.
- Large, Single Tower Radiator with wide fins
BeQuiet's Shadow Rock 3 features a large, single tower radiator with wide fins which allow air to be easily pushed through the unit without requiring a large amount of static pressure. This design also makes it ideal for fanless cooling, if you're so inclined. The unit's top is made of brushed metal and features BeQuiet's logo.
- Full RAM compatibility and clearance
Since the fan doesn't overhang the RAM on the BeQuiet's Shadow Rock 3, all sizes of RAM are compatible with this cooler no matter how tall they are!
- Engineered for silent operation
BeQuiet's Shadow Rock 3 was designed with the goal of quiet operation. As you'll see in the benchmarks below, this cooler is one of the quietest models I have ever tested!
- 1x 120mm Shadow Wings 2 PWM fan
The fans included with a cooler can be just as important as the heatsink, and have a direct impact on performance and noise levels. BeQuiet! includes their 120mm Shadow Wings 2 fan which has been tuned for quiet operation with maximum speed of 1,600 rotations per minute.
Included Contents
The Shadow Rock 3 is packaged with cardboard, plastic, and molded foam for the protection of the product.
The contents included are shown in the picture below. They include a thick single tower heatsink, 1x 120mm fan, a screwdriver, fan clips, thermal paste, the instruction manual, and mounting equipment for both AMD and Intel platforms.
AM4/AM5
The mounting tools include everything you need to install the cooler including a screwdriver and a tube of thermal paste.
The installation of this cooler is similar for both Intel and AMD platforms, the primary difference being that you start by removing the default retention mechanism on Ryzen.
Once the mounting bars have been secured, you'll mount the heatsink and use a screwdriver to secure the cooler against the mounting bars.
Next you'll use the fan clips to secure the included fan against the heatsink and connect the fan to your motherboard's PWM header.
Test Platform Configuration and Testing Methodology
I've tested BeQuiet's Shadow Rock 3 paired with AMD's Ryzen 7 7700X CPU and ASRock's B650E Taichi motherboard, installed in DeepCool's CK560WH computer case. To test cooling capacity, I run Cinebench R23's multi-core benchmark in four system configurations.
- Performance when noise normalized to 36.4 dBA for quiet operation
- Performance and Acoustics at the default power limits and fan curves
- Performance and Acoustics with a 95W power limited imposed and default fan curves
- Performance and Acoustics with a 75W power limit imposed and default fan curves
Observant readers may notice that the noise graphs start at 35 instead of zero. This is because my sound meter cannot measure sound levels lower than 35 dBA. This makes it the "zero" for testing purposes. For those concerned that this might distort results - there's no worry. If anything, the graphs above will minimize the differences in noise levels because dBA measurements are logarithmic. For a detailed explanation of how decibel measurements correspond to perceived noise levels, please check out the video below from BeQuiet! which makes it easy to visualize and understand the true impact of of increasing dBA levels.
Noise Normalized Results
Performance scales by an extremely limited amount with stronger coolers on AMD's Ryzen 7 7700X, which means there isn't much of a benefit to running fans at full speed. It's useful to see how coolers perform when noise normalized for quiet operation.
Cooling an average of 112W during the course of Cinebench testing, the Shadow Rock 3 performs similarly to many mid-tier air coolers when noise levels are optimized for silence.
Maximum Cooling Performance at Default Power Limits
With the stock power limits of AMD's Ryzen 7 7700X, most coolers will cause the CPU to reach it's TJMax of 95C. In this configuration, we'll be evaluating the cooler by how many watts are dissipated by the cooler and the noise levels it produces at full speed.
If you only look at the maximum cooling performance with an average of 120W, this isn't really an impressive result. It's not a bad result per se, and you won't lose a lot of performance with this lower cooling capacity - but this cooler isn't designed for maximum performance, it's designed for silent operation.
When it comes to noise levels, BeQuiet's Shadow Rock 3 has one of the quietest maximum noise levels I've ever recorded. At only 38.2 dBA, the noise is comparable to a very low hum.
95W Thermals and Acoustics
It's important to test a cooler under a variety of power limits, because most workloads won't push the CPU to use it's full power budget. Cooling difficulty decreases dramatically with lower power workloads and how loud the cooler operates in these situations is more important.
As with our previous thermal results, if you're looking at CPU temperature only you won't be impressed by these results. Where this cooler shines is noise levels, at only 37.3 dBA in this benchmark it's the quietest cooler of all those tested here.
75W Thermals and Acoustics
Workloads like gaming tend to use around 75 watts, so this test will represent the sort of noise levels and temperatures you'll encounter while gaming on Ryzen 7 7700X. This is a fairly easy thermal test, and even the weakest of coolers should handle it without problem.
While I show thermal results here in the graph above, they're not very important. Acoustics and noise levels are much more important, no matter what cooler you're planning on using. Really, all of the results above are good enough and even the worst result isn't any cause for concern.
In this low intensity scenario, BeQuiet has the 2nd best results for noise levels of any cooler we've tested here. At 36.4 dBA, most users won't notice the noise levels at all.
Conclusion
BeQuiet's Shadow Rock 3 doesn't have the best thermal performance compared to other coolers of it's price range, but what it offers is best in class noise levels with an emphasis on silent cooling performance. If you're looking for an air cooler that performs well and runs quietly, the Shadow Rock 3 is what you're looking for. If you're interested in this cooler, it is currently available (as of this writing) for $49.90 on Amazon.com
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